


Pictures From the Flood That Wrecked Our Home

by anonymau5



Category: Maggot Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Human!Owen, M/M, Powen - Freeform, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:17:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymau5/pseuds/anonymau5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or The Wacky AU Pizza-Centric Adventures of Short Asshole and Slightly Taller Asshole</p><p> </p><p>Everything's Ok!AU, where Owen moves with his fam to Sovereign City before the Big Bad Thing happens in Boulder (I assume) which indirectly triggers the events of Maggot Boy.</p><p>Pre-Incident!AU. No zambies yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pictures From the Flood That Wrecked Our Home

**Author's Note:**

> Characters belong to Jessica Gazzard and Eli Inman, respectively.

" _Broccoli pizza?_ Who in the actual hell eats broccoli pizza? I didn't even know that was a thing, that people did."

"I do! It's really good, actually!"

"Okay, so I'm glad we're on the same page that we're not doing that. I'm all about that pepperoni life, I say we go that way."

"I'm a vegetarian, _jaggoff!"_

"You're annoying, is actually what you are."

"Look, they sell it by the slice, I'll just pay for my own, okay?"

" _Whaaat?_ Dude, that's not how dates work, I'm like sixty-two percent sure."

"Of course it is," Owen told him flatly, leafing through a thin sheaf of one dollar notes, trying to work out whether he had enough to float his own bill. "Traditionally it's the _guy_ who pays, after all."

"Oh, before I forget, ask them if they have gluten-free Shut The Fuck Up."

*

"Can I get a–um, one slice of pepperoni and one Sicilian?"

"You guys got french fries?" Owen asked, peeking over the top of the glass display case; he was only barely able to see over it, even balancing on the toes of his sneakers.

"Fries are on special offer in February," one of the flour-caked guys in the open kitchen behind the counter told them while he kneaded a loaf of doe. "One plate, one dollar."

The two of them gave each other the most hysterically enthused expressions, mouths open wide in an exaggerated display of histrionic excitement.

"Three," Parker told the guy at the register.

"We need three of those," Owen confirmed quickly.

"Unclogged arteries are stupid."

"Go hard or go home," Owen agreed solemnly as Parker handed the cashier a meager ration from his crumpled billfold. He narrowed his eyes in fascinated disgust when Parker asked one of the guys behind the counter if they had malt vinegar for the french fries. "So you won't eat broccoli on pizza but you'll flood _fried potatoes_ in fermented ethanol, is basically what you're telling me."

" _Broccoli pizza,_ " Parker started sternly, "was the cause of Watergate, 9/11 and the Fall of Man, first of all. It's downright macabre. Secondly–" he paused, thanking the cook who set the glass Heinz bottle down on the countertop, "– _secondly_ , this stuff is ten times better than ketchup on fries."

Owen grimaced, rolling his eyes as he turned on the heel of his sneaker, wandering off to find a table.

"Whatever, do what you want. _Disgusting_."

"You say that _now_ ," Parker argued, grinning as he slid into a booth, sitting opposite Owen, "but who knows–maybe I'll be a good influence on you."

*

"The rain's supposed to be vile tonight, I hear. _Davey's not gonna be haappyy_ ," sang Parker. He was slouched back in his seat, his shoulders tense, crumbling a french fry between his fingers and cocking an eyebrow in annoyance. "He's got a _game_ tomorrow morning. If we get the kind of crazy storm surge they're saying we're _supposed_ to, it's definitely gonna be cancelled."

"You're so lucky you've got a brother, dude," Owen complained, shoulders slumped. "I'd kill for one."

" _Psh_ , you can _have_ him," Parker snorted snobbishly, flicking a crumb across the table. "He's so embarrassing. It's like I can't do anything without him drawing dicks all over it."

"I always see him around with all those stoners on the soccer team. Oh–and those guys who always get in trouble for longboarding in the halls."

"Oh no," Parker groaned, slumping his shoulders and watching Owen with wide-eyes, brows knit with what _looked_ like the onset of headache-inducing exasperation. "He didn't do that thing he does, did he? Where he and his friends scream something stupid at you as they skate by? Because I swear, they do that to _everyone_ , and you shouldn't take it personally. Literally _every_ day, when I'm walking home from school, they race right by me and scare me out of my skin screaming something like _'FORESKIN'_ or _'GLANDULAR DISORDERS.'_ He's actually ten, like I promise, it's not like, them picking on you or whatever."

That made Owen laugh–a nasally, kiddish but incontestably _welcome_ sound that made some small, sad weight on Parker's chest evaporate, leaving only warmth in its wake.

"They _did_ scream something in French at me, once, actually."

_"Omelette du fromage?"_

" _That_ was it!" Owen snapped his fingers, pointing.

"Yeah, that one's a fan favorite. Idiots."

Owen snorted, lifting his limp pizza off the plate, blowing steam off the top coat of grease and cheese.

"You play soccer too?"

"Me? No way. Davey's the athletic one. And the artistic one. And the popular one."

"And what about you?"

"I watch TV," Parker told him, grinning lopsidedly. "You play any sports?"

"Yeah, I'm actually really good at basketball."

"Uh." PJ sat back, eyebrows raised, taking in Owen's short stature–painfully pronounced even despite the fact that they were both sitting. "Really?"

" _No_ , not _really_ , dumbass."

Parker stared limply, pizza in hand, before snorting loudly, a grin splitting his face.

*

"One time–" Owen explained between shoving handfuls of french fries into his maw, "–in, like, the fourth grade, I called my teacher mom in front of the _entire class_. Bonus story: I saw her again last year and she apparently remembers and actually brought it up apropos of nothing, so."

"Once," Parker challenged, grinning, "This lady was _waving_ at me–like this random lady or whatever–so like, I don't know, I waved back at her, and then I turned around and it was actually this dude getting off at the bus stop that she was waving at." Owen snorted loudly.

"I once ate half a sack of fruit-flavored candies before I realized they were decorative soaps."

"On–" They both jumped when Parker, who had heaved his skinny torso over the edge of the table to reach for the salt shaker, had upturned his drink and doused half the tabletop in soda; they stared wordlessly at a plate of sodden fries drowning in a foaming broth of Coke. Finally, Parker raised his head. "One time I did that."

"Wow." Owen rested his forward weight on his elbows, eyebrows raised, impressed. "You win."

*

"Who the hell is Lana Del Rey?" Owen asked, thumbing through Parker's iPod, the two of them maundering down an busy streetside, lined with shops, sopping in an ocean of orange sundown. They maneuvered effortlessly past urban obstacles, weaving in and out of sandwich boards and streetside vendors in metal carts that glittered with ice and sunset. "You've got like thirty songs from her, and like six little hearts next to her name."

"No one," Parker said quickly, turning red and snagging the iPod back out of Owen's possession. "That's not real."

*

Twenty-five minutes of wandering the city without destination had yielded favorable results, bringing them to a gated park just outside the warm glare of downtown light, down a long suburban road with only the glow of the streelights to punctuate the darkness. Face-to-face with a padlock and a sign affixed to the sealed gate which read _Closed After Dusk_ , the two boys hoisted themselves–first Owen, standing on Parker's shoulders, and then Parker himself–onto the tall brick wall partition that enclosed the park, swinging their legs over the side and watching the last dregs of pale blue sunset melt away behind the curvature of the earth. Once the dusk had settled in, the park had disappeared behind an opaque quilt of thick black nothing, the lonely suburban street at their back the only source of light, and Owen and Parker sat on the divide.

Their conversation ebbed and flowed, but with a synergetic push and pull to their exchanges and to their mutual taunting that, to an outsider, would seem almost practiced. This had only really been their second or third _real_ conversation since they'd met in school, but they spoke like they'd known each other all their lives, able to discern which silent spaces needed filling and which were better left alone. Their discussions had taken a turn from the colloquial to the casually philosophical, bouncing half-baked theories off one another. Slowly, though, the debate fizzled, and the two became silently enamored with how absolutely the shadows swallowed every pearl of reflected light that should have been.

Owen's next words cut through the frigid silence like the snapping of branches, echoing off in the darkness:

"You ever feel like there's a different iteration of yourself out there?"

"Sure," Parker agreed, shrugging his shoulders. "You mean like a long-lost twin, or something? Who like, doesn't know you exist and lives in Chile or Maldives or whatevs?"

"No," he said, staring out into the darkness rolled out in front of him, and from his position at the top of the brick wall he could see an eternity of dusk, the glow of the streetlights gradually unraveling into the darkness of the grassy open space rolled out in front of them. He could see that it was like ombre, the further out he looked, colors depleting in saturation and light losing its intensity as it melted away into darkness by degrees. And Owen saw himself, situated just near the streetlights, in the only light space for what looked like miles, or infinity. "I mean like parallel universes."

"OH, like in fanfictions? ' _AU'_ and all that?"

"Yeah, kind of." He kept on watching the stillness of dusk, the impenetrable wall of opaque blackness that sat on the grass not thirty feet away. "It's like–you ever just feel like you're, like... the same _person_ , for all intents in purposes, in another universe, but you're like... living a different life? Like you've–you've got the same _name_ , and all, and the same facial features and I guess you'd probably have a lot of the same interests and stuff but... something happened that triggered an _offshoot_ , y'know?"

"Like maybe my parents were killed and I became a master bankrobber," Parker agreed, bristling with interest. He worked his jaw, before adding "– _slash_ opulently-clad playboy _SLASH_ hard-shelled vigilante by night" as an afterthought.

"I wouldn't doubt it for a minute," Owen told him, smiling lopsidedly.

"So, who are you in this alternate universe of ours?" Parker wanted to know, scooting closer. "No delusions of grandeur taking the form of infantile superhero daydreams, I hope?"

"Never, my balls dropped years ago."

"Wow, up yours."

Owen snorted, shoving him.

"No theories about alternate-universe-offshoot-timeline-Owen, then?"

Owen's grin slipped off his face, slowly; he sighed, turning to look out again into the dark.

"If we're sticking to the multiverse theory," he started, sitting forward and wringing his hands, "then yeah, I've imagined a few. I get these _deja-vu-ey_ feelings, y'know? And it's triggered by stuff, y'know, but it's like I remember all these wisps and fragments of things that never were."

"Like what?"

Owen groaned, probing his brain.

"I don't know, like when I walk past that children's hospital–St. Florian, on... Water and 14th, I'm pretty sure? You know the one I'm talking about, right? Yeah, I mean, I just get these weird feelings, like I spent my whole life in a children's hospital in some other universe. I used to think it was because of cancer, or something, but my skin always crawls and so I've started to think that maybe I was a burn victim. I can just... I can taste the stuff they use to clean the floors, y'know? I can hear the electrocardiograph ringing every time my pulse throbs, I can _remember_ how stiff and papery the sheets are, even though I've never stayed in a hospital before. Or, like, other times? I'll see like, a little girl  with her parents and I'll get this crazy deja vu, like the universe is trying to get me to remember all the times my little sister and I played outside–but I don't remember that, because _I don't have a sister._ So, I was thinking, maybe that was in another life, where Alice and Tom never adopted me and–" He stopped, absorbing his own rant before deflating and turning to Parker: "Does this sound stupid?"

"No way, dude!" Parker said honestly, animatedly. "That's really crazy–I mean, I totally know what you're talking about, too! Like, I've heard other people mention stuff like that before, and I feel it too, sometimes!"

"Yeah, it's pretty wild, I guess."

"Any of them feel stronger than the others? Like, does one of them stand out, or whatever?"

"I–" Owen swallowed, staring wide-eyed at Parker, who was alight with curiosity, utterly engrossed. He hesitated for a long moment, the silence pregnant with a nauseous uncertainty, before finishing hoarsely: "–I died."

Parker held his expectant excitement for a moment longer before his expression fizzled from one of eager inquisition to deadpan disappointment, having expected a more intricately-woven tale.

"Well that was anti-climactic," he offered defeatedly. "Was that it? You just up and croaked? Uh–no disrespect intended toward your alternate-universe memory, obviously."

Owen couldn't help but smirk, but it was empty-looking.

"I was _here_ ," he went on, staring at his sneakers, hanging off the side of the brick wall. "In Sovereign City. I can feel it, sometimes."

"Wait, so you moved here? Same as you did in, y'know, _this_ universe? From Boulder with your mom and dad?"

"I don't think so," said Owen. "I get the feeling I came alone."

"How's a fourteen year old gonna get from Boulder to Sov City by himself?" Parker stopped, seeming to be working something out in his head. "And didn't you say you were _dead?_ Were you dead, or did you come here, which was it?"

"I think it was both."

They both went quiet.

"I'm gonna be honest," Parker said finally, holding his hands up in earnest defense. " _I don't get it._ "

Owen laughed defeatedly, shrugging his shoulders.

"I don't either. I think maybe I got my signals crossed."

"Think so, man."

"I don't–it's like, _ugh_ , I just. It _feels_ like if I had stayed in Boulder... something really _bad_ would have happened. And whatever happened there made me feel like I needed to come _here_ –and, it's like–" he wilted, staring out into the dark again. "It's like I get this really bad feeling when I walk past certain places. Like certain alleyways, a-and roads and buildings and stuff, like something bad happened here, like a lot of people got hurt here–like, I'm talking about a _lot_ of people, like a _lot_ , like of genocidal proportions–and that it was _my fault._ Like I was this really bad, dangerous person, somehow, in another life. And I get, I don't know... I get scared, I guess." He shifted his weight, peering over at Parker, who was watching him with a peculiar alertness. "Do you actually believe any of this?"

"I believe geniuses can do great things," Parker told him, "including sensing things that maybe the rest of us can't." That made Owen's ears turn red. "Like, did you know Albert Einstein once left his house for school as a boy without any pants on? Geniuses, man."

"That... really has nothing to do what what I'm s–"

"Also did you know that Steve Jobs never owned a license plate, _ever_ , probably? Geniuses, man. Straightup queer, man, let me tell you some things."

"I'm going to kill you with my book bag and make it look like an accident," Owen told him, unable to curb the onset of a grin. "And I'm not a fucking _genius_ , second of all. I just actually _do_ my homework instead of reading _comic books._ "

"Shots fired," Parker observed cooly. "Owen, honestly? I think you need to stop worrying about all the things that _could have_ happened. And I don't want you to be scared of yourself, because you're so completely _not_ a bad person at all. Who can say for sure, maybe that stuff _did_ happen in another universe–but you'e not that person, you're _you_. You're an _awesome_ person, and you're funny and you're observant and you're really short so I look good standing next to you, which is obviously most important–" Owen grinned, shoving him hard. "–and you're _here_ , which is my favorite part, because I'm here too, and I'm glad that we're both in the same place at the same time in the same universe, because I like you a lot."

"I like you, too," Owen told him, face lit up and radiating heat, grinning with a dizzy exhilaration at the admission.

"You're allowed to say no," Parker told him, scooting closer so his arm was pressed up against Owen's. "And my feelings won't be hurt. We'd just carry on the conversation like I'd never even asked, okay? Wouldn't change the fact that I totally love hanging out with you and that I'm still going to bug you with my friendship on a day-to-day basis, okay?"

"Uh," Owen cringed, not quite following. "Okay?"

"Can I kiss you?"

Owen's face burned so hot against the frigid February air that the contact nearly whipped up steam.

" _Yeah_ ," he breathed, and Parker pressed his open mouth to Owen's. It was an artless kiss, fumbling and wet and awkward and laughably self-conscious, but when they both pulled away they were smiling at each other, all white teeth and rosy skin.

"I like you so much," Owen admitted giddily, dizzily, his breath a warm waft of white smoke in the icy air. They were folded into each other, now, Owen hiding his face in the crook of Parker's neck and inhaling the sweet, warm blend of deodorant and laundry detergent. "I like you so much. Is this–I mean, do you... Are you like, like _seeing_ anybody right now?"

"Pretty sure if I was seeing anybody I wouldn't be making out with you, dude," Parker cooed from behind a warm grin.

"Right," Owen laughed nervously. "I'm sorry, I've never–I mean, nobody's ever, like..."

"It was my first kiss, too, if it wasn't disastrously obvious," Parker offered helpfully, shrugging. Owen visibly wilted, wringing his gloved hands.

"Oh," he cooed, an unmistakably old pain creeping into the lines that pressed between his eyebrows. "Are... I mean, are you sure that was... okay? You don't regret... I mean, with _me_ –"

"Stop," Parker commanded gently, taking Owen's face into his hands, effectively shutting him up. "Shut up. Don't slip back into that dark place, alright? I can _see_ it, when you start to slip through my fingers like that, and you get away from me, away from everyone." He kept Owen's face in his hands, watching him sadly. "I don't regret you, Owen, I _adore_ you. I think you're the coolest kid ever, and it makes me sad that you don't think so, too."

Owen stared back into Parker's eyes, his own going glassy and wide.

"I'm sorry I'm such a wet blanket," was the weak, congested offering worked out of his throat, wet with mucus.

"That right there," Parker explained sternly. "Stop doing _that_. It hurts, watching you call yourself names and put yourself down like that's all that you deserve. You're a _good person,_ Owen."

"You–" he swallowed. "You think so?"

Parker collected Owen into his arms all at once, and Owen took to him like static cling, making himself small and burying himself in Parker's collarbone.

"Yeah." Parker said it like it was a promise, kissing the top of Owen's head and rocking the both of them. "I do."

Rosy-cheeked, buttoned up in scarves and heavy coats, they were wordless and still as the first quiet flakes of snowfall wandered down from starless sky.

"Huh," Parker crooned, peering up into the darkness, speckled with white flurry. "Look at that! We were supposed to get absolutely flooded tonight, weren't we? All'a that rain froze up, though, yeah? _Noice!_ " He glanced at Owen–still wrapped up, awkward and comfortable, in his arms–through his periphery, wearing a cockeyed grin. "Guess we lucked out, huh?"

"Yeah," Owen mused, wide-eyed, absorbed in the sedative, hypnotic temperament of the snowfall's easy downward drift. "I guess we did."

"C'mon. Let's get out of here." Parker hopped off the brick wall, landing on sturdy feet and offering his hand to Owen.

"I can get down myself," Owen snapped gruffly.

"I know you can," answered Parker. "Just thought I'd help. What are you, four?"

Owen grumbled miserably, furrowing his brow at the long jump below before sighing loudly and accepting Parker's hand. Losing his footing as he landed, Parker grabbed his shoulder, helping to steady him.

"Very graceful," Parker offered.

"Oh _fuck you._ " Owen pawed at the snow on the back of his coat. Parker watched, cross-armed and amused. 

"We goin' or what?" Parker asked, smiling, holding out his hand for Owen to take.

Owen stopped, opening his mouth before turning and peering into the darkness of the park they'd spent so long staring into. 

"I think..." Owen wavered, staring back into the darkness with uncertain eyes. Snow eased in all around them, gingerly and innocuously speckling their hair and their clothes. Eyes still on the dark, he reached out, blindly taking Parker's hand. "...I think we need more food, because I'm hungry again. Chinese, this time."

Parker snorted, grinning ear-to-ear when Owen turned back to him and smiled. Overcome with some featureless fullness in his belly–an eerie contentedness that was utterly foreign to him until now–he balanced himself on the toes of his sneakers, skritching against the icy grass, and kissed Parker's cheek. And Parker, wine-red and warm down to the deepest parts of himself, squeezed Owen's hand tight and tugged him along: their backs to the dark unknown, they eased toward the glow of the street-lamps that dotted the road that led back into downtown, connected to one another by snowy, mittened hands and a mystifying familiarity that transcended lifetimes.

"And you say you're not a genius."

*

_"And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones,_

_'cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs,_

_setting fire to our insides for fun,_

_collecting names of the lovers that went wrong._

_[...]_  

_And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones,_

_'cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone._

_We're setting fire to our insides for fun,_

_collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked our home–_

_it was a flood that wrecked this home._

 

_And you caused it."_

-Daughter, _Youth_

**Author's Note:**

> I write my Parker with a lot of Davey in him and I write Owen as a vegetarian because I like the irony ok leave me alone i'll do what i want gOSH


End file.
